I got up early and purchased my tickets to the 17 September performance of this opera at the Garnier. It is the matinee at 14:30, does anyone know how long this show is?

About 2 hours and a half enjoy !!

Merci

Good choice. You don't want to miss ANY concert/opera/recital where Christoph Prégardien is in the cast. He's one of the best lyric tenors of the last 2 decades, even though opera isn't his speciality and his roll isn't big - still very much worth it, his voice is out of this world. I watched the performance on French TV last year, the September show is a rerun.

The other members of the cast are not the same as in the performance I watched (apart from Hannah Esther Minutillo, who was very good), but with Anna Caterina Antonacci in the cast, you can't go wrong either. She has a superb, magnetic presence, not to mention a fabulous voice. Elina Garanca
is also a big name today, though I've never heard her. And her solo aria with the clarinet - at least Mozart's music there is downright smashing.

We'll be in Paris in Mid-September. How does one go about getting tickets on line?

Here's the link. Very easy to reserve tickets. When I did so in 2006 I was able to pick up the tickets at Opera Garnier the evening of the opera. Not sure if that's still an option.
http://www.operadeparis.fr/cns11/liv...ex.php?lang=en